12 oz. bottle pours a clear dark mahogany color with a small head that leaves practically no lacing. Aroma has toffee, hazelnuts, and tobacco as advertised. Taste is slightly sweet with some spices and a bit of alcohol warming in the finish. This is not a big boozy beer, but one that warms on a January day anyway. Body is medium with average carbonation and a slightly sticky mouthfeel. This one was pleasant and subtly warming, but not one that wowwed me making me want to return. This was my first from Excel Brewing. There are almost as many new breweries between St. Louis and Chicago as misguded police bullets so that I have a hard time keeping current and dodging the bad ones. Red beers matter, although this one doesn’t grab the headlines. It is not misguded or prentious, but is merely a pleasant one-off in my quest for memorable local beers.

This is maybe a bit on the sweet side but it does have a ton of malt character to show for it so I suppose this is acceptable. It is predominantly dried fruit, toffee and some nuttiness w/ an edge of earthy bitterness. It’s slightly sticky but that seems to work reasonably well w/ the flavors offered so it does not come off as cloying or overly heavy. This seems to find a nice balance between drinkability and being a slow sipper.

The beer pours reddish bronze with a small beige head. The aroma has toffee, deep bready malt, English yeast and some dates. It has a medium body with lots of semi sharp carbonation. The flavor starts with the aroma notes by drier with a bit of woodiness and spice. The finish is pretty dry and has some caramel. Pretty nice.

Bottle-Pours a ruby./mahogony hue with a nice fizzy eggshell head around the rim of the glass. Nose is musty, dusty, malty, nutty, slightly mineral. Flavors show lots of toffee, caramel, slightly nutty, some honey sweetness. Long finish very sweet light bitterness, earthy hops. Body is medium with moderate carbonation. A pretty straight forward ESA however, i do dig the malt profile here. Decent.

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